Big Idea:
Can students make better judgments than teachers? Let's see who has the edge!

For today's lesson, my students will be exploring what is a belief and where do beliefs come from in their journal writing. They will share their ideas of beliefs and create a definition of beliefs that we will use in class. This task is aligned to W.9-10.10. and SL.4.3

Then, they will work on the first draft of the belief poem, completing the sentence stems that stand out to them. After my students finish these drafts, they will look at three acronyms for literary analysis, WISE, FACE and W/STEAM and they will use these acronyms as a guide to help them to determine what they need to add to develop in their poems. In addition, they will select an acronym they will use to analyze their finished poems. They will give two reasons for selecting this acronym. This task is aligned to W.4.1 and W.9-10.10.

To start the lesson, students will review their maxim: To make a judgement, you must have an opinion. To have an opinion, you must have a belief. Then, we will look at the questions, "What is a belief? Where do beliefs come from? This task is aligned to W.9-10.10

Then, students will view a presentation of a This I Believe poem. After hearing the poem, they will write the first draft of their own belief poems in their notebooks using the This I Believe Template. Since this task requires deep thought, students are advised to choose the sentence starters that stand out to them and to work on those sentence starters first.

Students who struggle with on-demand writing tasks will be given the option to select five sentence starters that stand out to them and they may complete these as a part of their first draft. This task is aligned to W.4.1 and W.9-10.10.

Share:

Students will exchange poems with their table partners and table partners will give feedback regarding the beliefs expressed in the poem. This task is aligned to SL.4.3. Since this activity is done for positive reinforcement, we will work with sentence starters such as

For this part of the lesson, my students will look at WISE, W/ STEAM and FACE. WISE and W/STEAM were created by the students in yesterday's lesson. I will tell them that I created FACE

They will write their opinions about each in their notebook. Then, decide which acronym they will use to analyze the This I Believe poem they heard during the Warmup.

I will tell them the poem is a first draft, so they will be using one of the three acronyms for the following purposes:

(a) to determine which aspects of their poem they need to work on developing further

(b) to determine which acronym may be best for them to use to evaluate their completed poems.

At the end of the activity, they need to have the following:

(a) a list of things they need to work on developing in their poem based on the criteria presented in each acronym.

(b) The acronym they wish to use to evaluate their completed poem. They need to have two reasons for selecting this acronym as well.

Students will record their responses on the following sheets. For this part of the lesson, my students will be working in pairs so that they can share their ideas and hear the reaction of their peers to their thoughts and ideas. This helps them to develop confidence.

Resources (3)

Resources

For this part of the lesson, my students will look at WISE, W/ STEAM and FACE again, but this time they will be choosing an acronym for their own This I Believe Poems.

They will choose which acronym they will use to analyze the This I Believe poems they wrote during the Warmup.

Since the poems are first drafts, they will be using the criteria for the following purposes:

(a) to determine which aspects of their poems they need to work on developing further

(b) to determine which acronym may be best for them to use to evaluate their completed poems.

At the end of the activity, they need to have the following:

(a) a list of things they need to work on developing in their poem based on the criteria presented in each acronym.

(b) The acronym they wish to use to evaluate their completed poem. They need to have two reasons for selecting this acronym as well.

Students will record their responses on the following sheets. For this part of the lesson students will be working alone. I have chosen for them to work independently at this point in the lesson so that they can make a judgment of their own using the thought and ideas they discussed in the earlier sections of the lesson as well as those shared in Lesson #1 and Lesson #2.

For this part of the lesson, my students will determine which acronym they would use to analyze their poems. They will choose from the list: W/STEAM, WISE and FACE. Then, we will tally the votes to determine which acronym is more popular, the teacher-created or the student-created.

I decided to include a friendly competition at this point in the unit because I want my students to recognize the value in taking ownership of their learning, and I want them to walk away from this experience feeling empowered that they have the tools with which they can make decisions about how they choose to evaluate poetry.

At the end, my students will complete the 3-2-1 exit ticket so that I can evaluate their understanding of the lesson. In addition, I want to assess the effectiveness of my method of delivery as well as pacing for today's lesson.